HOUSTON, March 23, 2017 (PCW) – Two new ethane vessels are heading for Enterprise Products Partners’ Morgan’s Point terminal and are expected to arrive by the end of April.

The JS Ineos Independence left the shipyards at Ulsan, Korea, on Tuesday. Capable of transporting as much as 260,000 barrels of standard ethane, it will join Ineos’ existing fleet of four Dragon class ships that largely move supplies from the Marcus Hook export terminal in Pennsylvania to the company’s crackers in Rafnes, Norway, or Grangemouth, Scotland.

Additionally, the Ethane Sapphire on Thursday left the shipyards at Yeosu, Korea, also bound for Morgan’s Point. It can transport as much as 820,000 barrels of standard ethane and will be used by its charterer, Reliance Industries, to move supplies from Morgan’s Point to the company’s petrochemical facility in Jamnagar, India.

Ineos has two more ethane ships – the JS Ineos Intuition and JS Inoes Invention – that are scheduled to go into service by 4Q. Reliance has one more vessel, the Ethane Topaz, to be delivered and is expected to begin service by year’s end.

PetroChem Wire estimates that by the end of the year, total dedicated ethane-capable vessel capacity will be about 6.41 million bbls, roughly equivalent of supplying a 3.3 billion lbs/yr ethane cracker for 71 days. --
Samantha Hartke